


Seven Deadly Sins

by NikkiJustTalk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Humiliation, Possible torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 23:48:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikkiJustTalk/pseuds/NikkiJustTalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To escape from Purgatory, each and any man must face The Agnostic. Agnostic the prison. Agnostic of Hell. Agnostic of War. And now, it's Dean and Cas' turn. To try their hand at the Seven Deadly Sins, and to make it out alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Deadly Sins

It had started out as a rumour, just whispers between the trees and the beasts. A way out of Purgatory. An escape. But then Dean asked Cas about it one night and it all became a fact. 

‘The Agnostic?’ ‘Yes. It was originally set up as a way to simply punish and purge the stronger souls here, to make them weak enough to prey upon in the night, but once more of us started to withstand it they turned it into an exit route. They fear being overthrown by the mighty, so they send the mighty home again. Purgatory is a one way street. You leave and you can’t come back again. Not for anything.’ 

So they’d begged for a chance to try it, and they’d bargained and bullied their way in, before one of the guards, a darkened shadow with a gun, dragged them to the entrance one day and took off again into the night.

‘Dean…’ He didn’t turn around. ‘Dean, you don’t have to do this.’ He took a few more steps towards the door. ‘Dean, please!’ ‘Cas, don’t you understand that this could be our way out? My way back to Sam? My way home?’ ‘Yes, I understand, but…’ ‘But nothing! I’m going, and if you’re too chicken, I’m going in alone.’

The door wasn’t a door. It was a blurred square of reality, a force field of nothing with no handle, no lock, no frame. Just a shape at the corner of existence. The guard hadn’t given them passes or keys to try, and they’d been warned that you only get one shot at opening it before it fades back into dust. That had happened to many a man in the past, before those men stopped being men, and became inhuman. Became savages in the dark. 

Dean lifted a hand, feeling his way around the edges of it and pushing at the force. Nothing. He tried kicking it and pulling at it and throwing himself at it but none of it worked.   
‘You wanna, I don’t know, give me a hand here?’ ‘Not particularly.’ ‘Cas…’ Castiel stepped forward stiffly. ‘Pushing it won’t help. It isn’t a normal door. It needs something from you, before you can gain something from it.’ ‘Well, what does it want? It’s a door, it can’t have that many human requirements!’ 

The angel stepped towards, pressing his fingers to the space, not roughly in the way Dean had done, but almost a caress, like he was soothing the unyielding matter. ‘It wants our attention.’ ‘Well it certainly got that! I’ve been giving it my attention for the past half an hour now…’ ‘No, Dean. It needs my attention. I have to want it open. This is all part of it, the first trick. The Agnostic changes the way people think, the way they want themselves to think. It knows I am reluctant.’ 

Dean looked at him disbelievingly. ‘So because you’re scared, the door won’t open?’ ‘I’m not scared.’ ‘Fine, you’re ‘reluctant’, but right now, Cas, you can’t be. Just…Please. For me. Open the door.’ Narrowed eyes turned on him, insulted at the request, and it was with a voice close to sarcasm that spoke again; ‘Of course Dean. When have I ever been able to deny you anything?’ There was a pause as the two men locked gazes, before there was a click and the unfocussed space became a huge dark hole that hung in the air behind them, a cool breeze rolling out around them and ruffling their hair. 

‘So this is it then? The doorway to hell?’ 

The room inside was cavernous; deathly quiet and completely empty. A cold stone floor and metal walls, almost resembling the inner depths of an unused factory or warehouse, with only a single tiny window filtering in a cold patch of a sunlight to the left of the room. 

It was also brightly lit, with painted coloured stripes running down every surface and candles flickering cheerfully from their sockets on the walls. In the center of the room was a single red chest, surrounded by different sized chairs and stools, as if whoever had designed it was expecting an audience. The floor was varnished wood, like a stage, and strips of fabric lay scattered carelessly upon it. 

‘Dean, there’s nothing here. It’s just a room.’  
‘Are you kidding me? It looks like the dressing room of Ronald McDonald the Circus Freak in here!’  
They turned to look at each other, and Cas’ head rocked slowly to the left.  
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand that.’   
Dean shook his head at him and opened his mouth to speak.  
‘Well Ronald McDonald is this freaky clown from McDon…’  
‘I don’t think I need to know that.’

He took a step into the darkened room, one hand stretched out behind him, as if warning Dean not to follow.

‘This is it Dean, this is part of the test. Whatever you can see in that room, it isn’t real. For some reason they’ve shown me something different to you.’   
‘Well what can you see?’  
‘I can see a dark empty room.’  
‘And…?’  
‘And that is it.’  
‘Right. So you can’t see my room? With…with the candles, and the box and the chairs?’  
‘No. I can’t.’  
‘O…k. So what, what do we do now? You go one way, and I go the other?’  
‘I guess that is the idea.’

But the second Dean’s foot touched the wooden floor, it was as if an invisible wall had slammed between his room and Cas’ because there’d been a sudden shout and then nothing. Where Castiel had been standing, there were two single dusty footprints, as if someone had walked there a long time ago, and hadn’t bothered to return since.   
Dean was on his own. 

Cas, however, wasn’t. Whilst the wall had closed for Dean, it had suddenly peeled away for him, like wallpaper being torn down by invisible fingers until he was left staring at the dark shadows at the other side of the room, and the man who was making them dance. He watched the man twirling his fingers round and round until the dark shapes followed and rolled with him, colliding and entwining, and separating to become figures who bowed to each other and danced across the walls.

‘Who are you?’  
The man didn’t respond. His face was turned away from Cas, and his clothes were too dark to make out. He repeated; ‘Tell me who you are. I don’t know what I’m meant to do here.’   
‘You know who I am.’ The voice was low and gravelly, and the words came out slowly, as if having never been spoken before.   
‘I…I’m sorry?’  
‘Castiel. You know who I am.’

The man took a careful step backwards as the shadows darted back into the dark and gently tilted his head upwards into the faint beam of light. Short dark hair glinted dully, and two dark eyes turned to stare at Castiel from the depths of a pale, sharp face.   
He was looking at himself. 

But he wasn’t. Because this version of himself was almost like a shadow itself, in a charcoal coat that let out little clouds of black smoke whenever the man moved, and shining leather shoes that padded across the room towards him.   
‘You…you’re me.’   
‘Yes.’ There was no trace of emotion in his voice, no leer, no hiss. No regret about what he was going to do to himself.   
‘I’m assuming you require me to do something?’  
The man didn’t answer him, but merely looked at him, questioningly.   
‘Do you know where you are?’  
‘I believe I am in The Agnostic.’  
‘Yes. You are. But do you actually know what that is? What will be required of you to pass through it?’  
Cas flinched away from his gaze, and shrugged a shoulder.  
‘I…I have heard rumours.’

The man took another step towards him, hands never straying from his sides. ‘The rumours are wrong. No one knows what really happens in here. If they get through it and live, they go home, and never speak of it again. If they don’t, then they can’t speak of it again.’  
He seemed to glance at Cas then, as if waiting for a reaction to his comment. When he received none, his mouth twitched into an awkward smirk that didn’t suit his face, and carried on.

‘You are currently standing in The Agnostic. The place of the questionable beliefs. Some men come here to test their strength. Some men come here to test their loyalty. Most men come here out desperation. Because they want to go home. You came here because of Dean. Because he asked you to. Because you always come when he asks you to.’  
The monotone voice edged around these words carefully, throat working not to relay the disdain and the pity written across his face. To Cas, it felt like a conscience, clawing at his nerves and trying to get a rise out him. To see oneself judge and belittle. 

‘Dean is my charge…’

‘Sam is your charge. Your charge was the Winchesters. And now it is just Sam. Because you have become Dean’s charge. He scares away the beasts and licks your wounds for you. He will cry when you perish. He loves you.’  
The angel lowered his chin, gaze flickering down to floor and up again.   
‘I very much doubt that…’  
‘Do you?’   
No. That was the honest answer. He didn’t. He’d watched over the Winchesters for many years, and aside from Lisa, Dean had let no one else in, let no one get as close to him as Castiel. He allowed him to help. Allowed him to heal. He didn’t turn him away. Acceptance. That’s love, for the humans. To love is to accept. Of all the things he’d learnt from Earth, this was the most simple thing. To hate is not to love. There was nothing else to it.

The man in his vessel raised an eyebrow almost cautiously, and slowly, eyes boring into him in amusement. He wasn’t stupid. But, he said nothing, and walked over to the wall he’d been standing at before, inclining his head towards the shadows.   
He twisted his hands together again, curling them into fists and drawing them out, pulling the shadows apart in ribbons, revealing what must’ve been Dean’s room before. Dean was dressed in a heavy scarlet cowl falling over his shoulders, and coarse yellow breeches billowing out at the thighs. Loosely clasped in his hands was a coloured Fools hat, and upon his feet were green cloth shoes. He was unconscious, slumping in a wooden chair near the chest, his head drooping onto his chest.   
Cas twisted his head round to look at the man.

‘What have you done to him?’

The man did not respond, but raised his palm towards the ceiling, ropes of shadows coiling after it. They separated from the wall, black strings looping themselves around invisible hooks on the roof before spinning down to encircle Dean’s wrists. Two more wrapped around his ankles, and another round his neck, like a collar.   
The other ends of the ropes dropped to Castiel’s feet with a soft thump, and then stilled; taunt with anticipation. Waiting to be pulled. 

‘Pride.’ 

The man spoke in gentle tones, practically whispering it, leaning in to watch Cas watch Dean. 

‘In The Agnostic, you will face the Seven Deadly Sins, one by one. If you can challenge down each and every sin, then both of you will leave. If only one of you succeeds, the other must remain in Purgatory eternally. If neither of you survive, your bodies are deposited in Hell for the devils to pick upon.’  
‘The Seven Deadly Sins?’  
‘That is correct.’  
‘I…I still don’t understand. Why have you taken my vessel?’  
The man sighed, hands hanging at his sides.  
‘I have not taken your vessel, Castiel. I am a part of it. I am the part of you that despises Deans pride. The part of you that rebels against his vanity and his selfishness. The part of you that begs for Dean to show the same pride in you that he shows in himself.’   
There was a beat. An opening for him to deny the accusations, to argue with himself.   
‘What am I expected to do?’

The man’s mouth twitched again, and he shifted until he was pressed against the angel, one hand splayed across his back, pushing the space where his wings would form and whispered slowly ‘Make. Him. Dance’.   
And then he was gone. Scattered into a cloud of ashes that settled around Castiel’s feet, and on the ropes draped beside them.

 

Cough. There was a cough. Dean’s eyelids fluttered open heavily, and his neck felt stiff when he lifted it. 

‘Arghh, that’ll hurt in the morning…’

‘Dean?’ He jerked his head up, glancing round at the sound. Cas was looking in at him through a jagged rip in one of the coloured walls, stood against a backdrop of shapes he couldn’t see, and was shifting a bunch of black wires from hand to hand, like they were hurting him to touch. When he saw that Dean was awake, he made a sort of jerky movement towards him before halting abruptly, asking instead ‘Are you alright?’

No. He wasn’t alright. He was dressed as an itchy Court Jester, his elfin shoes were too small, and at a closer look, the black wires in Cas’ hand were actually connected to all the limbs he needed to move to get away from whatever maniac had dressed him that morning. He tried to stand up but the restraints on his legs held him down, his fingers barely flexing against the bonds. 

‘I’ve been better.’

A tiny frown appeared on Cas’ face, and his hands twitched against the ropes again.  
‘Cas, what the hell are you…I mean, you wanna untie me or something? I look stupid!’   
‘I can’t.’  
‘Why not?’  
There was a tiny jerk on the wire around Dean’s neck, and Cas looked at his feet suddenly.

‘No. No way. There is no way in hell I’m doin’ that, Cas! I’m not bein’ your stupid puppet!’  
‘Dean…’  
‘I’m getting outta here right now!’  
‘Dean, please.’   
He stopped struggling to look at him.   
‘The only way to get out of here is for you to do this. I know how this works now. There’s 7 different tests for us, the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ he called it. I’m not entirely sure how that works, but apparently this one is Pride. Your pride. You have to do this.’   
‘Cas!’  
‘I’m sorry, Dean’.

And then he pulled the goddamn rope. 

His right arm shot into the air and flopped around above his head while he cursed, and then his left leg started to move too.   
‘Cas, I said no!’  
‘We don’t have a choice.’ 

The ropes around his wrists tugged his hands upwards, clamping the ugly looking jesters hat upon his head before dropping back down to his sides again. Then his head started to bob, making the damn bells on his hat ring in time with it.   
It was sick, like performing to an audience that wouldn’t laugh, that wouldn’t find it funny. An empty crowd. 

‘Cas, stop it!’  
‘I can’t Dean. I have to finish the routine.’

Suddenly all five ropes tightened at once, sending him bouncing into the air and hanging; a fly caught in a spider’s web. Then he was flung back down to the floor again, his arms wind milling as he went. 

He ended up darting from one side of the room to the other, teetering on uncoordinated legs, and then marching like a toy soldier.   
He was a teapot, a beetle, a ballerina as he wobbled along his strings. 

He bowed to his invisible audience, his hat tipping forward to cover his eyes and making him stumble. 

‘You know, I’m kinda getting tired now. So whenever you wanna grade us or mark us or whatever…I’d really appreciate it!’

And then it all stopped. The spindly ropes seemed to melt away and Dean dropped onto the stage with a thump. His clothes had returned to what they were, and the glitz and glamour of the room had faded into what must’ve been Cas’ room. Dark and gloomy and cold. And Cas was talking to someone Dean couldn’t see, he was nodding to him solemnly, not that Castiel’s face is ever anything but solemn. Then he turned around to look back at Dean, and gave a quick nod towards his corner of the room. The way out, so it would seem.


End file.
